


Lost in Translation

by blueteak



Category: Dominion (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Lack of Communication, M/M, Role Anxiety, Writing on the Body
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-19
Updated: 2015-11-19
Packaged: 2018-05-02 11:22:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5246480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueteak/pseuds/blueteak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alex attempts to understand what he is to Michael without having to ask.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost in Translation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [menel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/menel/gifts).



With Michael, Alex relished “after” more than the act itself. Even a year ago, he would have scoffed at the idea that lying there spent on the sheets, muscles lax, could be better than the ache and shhh and screams of sex. But with Michael, after was always the first time Alex felt as though he wasn’t on display on the stage of the bed, which always felt crowded with past performers and examinations of the markings on his skin. 

After, with the lights off, Michael against his back and a sheet draped over their hips, that was when he felt most connected to Michael, and to himself. All fear of being compared with others was gone, and all markings were grey in the dark. Or something like that. Spent, the weight of expectation receded for the night, and Michael’s eyes--eyes that were said to judge men at the moment of death-- weren’t attempting to read his future, or the future of their respective kinds.

Now, Alex stretched, sending shivers of secondary pleasure thrumming through his body as he bent one leg and then the other back, stretching hamstrings that had grown stiff from holding his legs over Michael’s shoulders for quite some time. 

He continued to stretch, waiting for Michael to return with a damp cloth to wipe him down. It was always Michael’s job to wipe them down, he thought, smiling smugly. It only made sense, after all, for the one with angelic strength to actually have to get up out of a comfortable bed. 

The first time Michael had arched a brow and said “Spoiled” at Alex’s attempt to nudge him toward the bathroom to fetch the cloth, Alex had grinned and shot back “Grew up in a tunnel. It’s the least you can do.” Only to feel immediately like the world’s biggest asshole—worse than David Whele, even-- at the way Michael’s face had shuttered. It had taken that face shutting down for Alex to realize it had been relatively open until then.

Alex had immediately sworn, starting to backtrack, then Michael had raised a hand. “You were joking, but you shouldn’t have been.” His eyes had scanned Alex, gaze lingering on scars so old they made Alex look like a 25-year veteran of wars rather than a 25-year old. “I’m sorry.”

Once, Alex had thought that was what he wanted. An apology, an acknowledgement that he had suffered needlessly. As soon as he had it, he realized that though he was still confused, still doubtful of everything—his place in the world, his place with Michael, the future after the next minute— he knew he didn’t want his childhood between them. That somehow, at some point, the apology had become unnecessary. 

So he had deployed the legendary Alex charm (which, incidentally, had been the cause of some of those scars. Some people couldn’t take a joke), flexed his muscles, and said “Well. If I hadn’t grown up in the tunnels, I wouldn’t be able to beat an angel at wrestling in his own bed, would I?”

Michael had eyed him for a minute, weighing who knew what in his mind before leaping onto the bed and creating a sticky tangle of wings and arms and legs.

Michael had won, of course, and maintained a firm grip on Alex’s neck, not letting go even after he’d fucked him to teary-eyed completion (again). Eventually, as their breathing had slowed, Michael had started rubbing circles on the back of Alex’s neck with his thumb, magnanimous in his victory. Alex had nudged him toward the bathroom to fetch the washcloth. 

After that, the occasional battle over the washcloth became a way to signal that some grievances had reached their expiry date: “Get it yourself for once, Alex” had been met with “You whipped me,” to which Michael had muttered that he was tempted to do so again. One firm swat and another round had Michael going for the cloth much later (and, admittedly, more satisfied) than he would have been had he done what Alex asked from the beginning.

Alex had just lifted his right leg in the air again, reaching behind the knee to draw it toward his chest and relishing the way the movement reawakened some of the aches given to him by Michael that he hadn’t had time to properly enjoy, when his leg was lifted higher by another set of hands and a warm washcloth was dumped on his chest. 

Michael looked utterly consumed by him as he slid one of his hands gently down Alex’s thigh, pausing here and there to massage a taut muscle, making Alex shift back and groan. 

Soon, that hand skimmed his entrance, drawing a shiver. Then fingers breached his sensitive rim and all Alex could hear was the squelching sound of Michael pushing his own come back into Alex’s hole, in and in and in, then slowly out. 

Alex squirmed, over-sensitive and embarrassed, spread open and displayed on a platform bed at Vega’s highest point, until Michael relented, folding him in half and entering him once more, kissing softly even as his hips snapped into Alex at a rougher pace.

Oh God, having his brains fucked out, and dishing out some angel-brain scrambling of his own, was amazing, no doubt. The now-cold washcloth spreading its icy dampness on his side of the bed, however, was not. Michael told him it had been his fault for stretching in a provocative manner, that he couldn’t get enough of him, and that he deserved all of the iciness for being a perpetual brat over the cloth-getting anyway. 

Anyone else—Noma, for example, would have thought Michael’s desire and his grudging acceptance of his role as Archangel and Fetcher of Washcloths meant that he was attached to Alex beyond the mentor/savior bond. In fact, Noma did think so (he hadn't revealed the story of the washcloth to her--it made him look like more of a brat than a soldier. Still, she always had some example of her own to use), and had said it, repeatedly and at great volume. Deep down, though, Alex knew that what Michael really couldn’t get enough of was Alex’s destiny, that he was “The Chosen One” before he was “Michael’s lover,” and that his skin was valued for the markings it bore rather than for any other reason. He knew also that all of this would end if he made the wrong call, if the markings failed him at a crucial moment. And he knew, from Gabriel, that Chosen Ones came and went, as did Michael’s bedmates. 

However, now that they were clean and he’d finally worn Michael out, the lights would go out, the sheet would cover them, and Michael’s arm would rest over his stomach. He could finally be free from the threat of scrutiny, the pressure of expectations, and the sense that time was running out. Entwined with Michael in the dark of night on the platform bed at the highest point in Vega, he felt secure, and like he was enough.

But the lights didn’t go out after they’d cleaned themselves with the frigid washcloth and changed the sheets. Michael curled up behind him as usual, then…kissed the back of his neck and began tracing his markings.

Of. Fucking. Course. This had to be ruined at some point, might as well be now. 

Michael’s fingers were gentle, soothing as they traced what felt like letters across his skin, but Alex held himself rigid, wanting to tell Michael to stop, but not wanting to have a horribly awkward, no-win “state of the relationship” conversation, either. 

Michael scuttled that plan. “Alex?” he asked, fingers still moving over Alex’s back. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Alex replied, trying to keep his tone even. “Just waiting for you to stop trying to talk to your dad through my back so I can get some sleep.”

Michael’s hand stilled. “Is that what you think I was doing? Believe me, if I’d been trying to reach my father, I wouldn’t have been nuzzling at your neck at the same time.” He had the nerve to sound amused.

Alex huffed, turning to face him. “Well, what else could you have been doing? My skin’s nothing more than a communication or pleasure center to you, and pleasure’s over for the night.”

Michael saw right through him, past the invitation to an argument, and stroked the side of Alex’s face. 

“That’s partly right,” he said softly, tilting Alex’s head back up when he made to look down. “I was trying to communicate. But with you.”

Alex’s brow furrowed. 

“And you would have understood me, if you spoke Enochian.”

Alex raised a brow, and Michael raised one right back. “Neither of us, I think, has room to judge on the open communication front?”

Alex reluctantly nodded. 

“Turn back around. I’ll translate it into English.”

This time, Alex recognized the words being traced on his back: “Rest well, my soldier, my savior, my love. I’ll be by your side, until the end of the age.”

Alex flipped back around, eyes wide. “You--?”

“Of course,” Michael replied, studying Alex in a way that finally showed him he was being truly *seen*, beyond markings and some vision of a future savior. “You should listen to Noma more often.”


End file.
